The change from analog electronic circuitry to digital electronic circuitry in the consumer electronics industry has brought about wide spread change in the products utilized by consumers. Examples of this change can be seen in personal computer and digital telephone circuitry. In the personal computer field, data storage apparatus in the form of hard disk drives and DVD (digital versatile disks) drives have allowed consumers to store massive amounts of digital data and have the ability to send that data to various display apparatus. The use of digital electronic technology has also enabled the advent of high definition television (HDTV) which will provide televisions with better picture quality, better viewing aspect ratio, and larger viewing screens.
After years of development, high definition television (HDTV) sets are now being sold. These new sets receive digital signals and produce a much sharper, static free picture. However, the new technology also comes with a much higher price tag. HDTV sets currently are sold in a price range from about $4,000 to $10,000 each. In order to sell these HDTV sets, it is imperative for the television dealers to show to the purchasing public the dramatic improvement in picture quality over standard analog sets.
The best means of operational display of the new HDTV sets would be to simply receive a digital TV broadcast from a local television station. Unfortunately, at the present time, there are only a handful of stations broadcasting digital TV to the nation's largest markets. Even these broadcasts are mostly limited to prime time viewing hours or special events. This method is simply not yet available to most of the nation most of the time.
Another way to display the new HDTV sets in operation is with a satellite feed. This technology can be very expensive, and is still not the best means to demonstrate the new sets because the content of the satellite broadcast may not be the best material for showing the sharper images produced by the new sets. Interference from weather and atmospheric conditions can also be a problem. The retailer also has to accept whatever signal is being sent by the satellite and the retailer does not have the ability to show material especially developed to demonstrate the features of HDTV.
The best solution for the retailer is to have a “box” in the store with pre-recorded high definition content that the sales person can play to customers to demonstrate their sets. One means of pre-recording material involves recording the HD material on a tape for the retailer to play back on a digital VCR. Because of the extremely large amount of information that needs to be stored and played back at a very high rate of speed, these tape decks and their tapes are far more complex and expensive than a standard analog VCR. But the biggest disadvantage with using a tape is the downtime required to rewind the tape when it reaches the end. Also, the HDTV player could not be left unattended to catch the eye of the passerby. The tape would simply reach the end and stop playing unless someone was there to rewind or change the tape. Besides being an inconvenience and a burden, it has resulting downtime and ineffectiveness built into it.
A need has arisen to provide an inexpensive means of providing a continuous looping feature useful while demonstrating HDTVs, at least until television broadcast stations are continually running HDTV broadcast signals.
It is an objective of the present invention, generally stated, to provide a continuous looping play feature in an HDTV player for sending HDTV format signals in a closed circuit to HDTVs.
More particularly, it is a further objective of the present invention to provide a continuous looping play feature with an HDTV player utilizing a hard disc drive, or a DVD drive, for storing and retrieving video data and converting it to 8-VSB format for use in a closed circuit to demonstrate and/or service HDTVs.